Covenants, most disliked new xpac feature?

[Krothar]

I like the idea of Covenants but yeah, even as a pretty casual raider I don't like the idea of picking a Covenant then whoops I lost the Lottery and I have a bad ability for the Expac.

[Krothar]

Then you just switch Covenant. It's literally as easy as asking the NPC to switch your Covenant. Going back to an old Covenant takes a little more effort but can still be done as well.

I thought they had made the decision to make your Covenant choice pennant? If not then, jolly good, time to make that early aesthetic choice.

[Popokolara]

The insane dislike for everything is a product of this negativity culture. People hated Azerite traits way more, they would have hated garrisons more if they were released in 2020, if we were in legion beta right now people would be losing their minds.

SL overall is going in a great direction, there is just a culture of negativity around everything and in the wow sphere things are magnified because there are a lot of people who have been playing the game for 15 years and believe that the reason they aren't enjoying WoW as much as they one were is because blizzbad, rather than their path in life.

Arguments have been presented. So read them, stop pretending you are some blessed enlightened angel when you are literally saying: everyone saying no is bad cause community, derrrrreep.

You made zero arguments. Zero.
Wake up. Read the discussion. Add something constructive.

[KSM899]

Why did people like artifacts but not covenants?

In artifacts, you only have one per your spec, you had no other choice for that spec. Covenants on the other hand allows you to choose between 4 no matter what spec you are.

Yes there are less choices, but overall I think the concept is better than artifacts.

[Popokolara]

Why did people like artifacts but not covenants?

In artifacts, you only have one per your spec, you had no other choice for that spec. Covenants on the other hand allows you to choose between 4 no matter what spec you are.

Yes there are less choices, but overall I think the concept is better than artifacts.

because off spec is completely fucked, and artifacts did not gimp one role to allow optimisation in another. After a while your offspec was doing ok with artifacts but not with legendaries. Covenants is gonna be a shitshow about balancing.

[Sunslayer]

Why did people like artifacts but not covenants?

In artifacts, you only have one per your spec, you had no other choice for that spec. Covenants on the other hand allows you to choose between 4 no matter what spec you are.

Yes there are less choices, but overall I think the concept is better than artifacts.

I don't agree at all. Maybe I got lucky but I really enjoyed all of my Artifact weapon abilities. On the flip side, many Covenant spells look very boring.

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I like the idea of Covenants but yeah, even as a pretty casual raider I don't like the idea of picking a Covenant then whoops I lost the Lottery and I have a bad ability for the Expac.

I wish I were a raider as I'm going Venthyr on my Forsaken Hunter. I mostly PvP and M+. So, the ability is at least good for PvP but M+, not at all.

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The insane dislike for everything is a product of this negativity culture. People hated Azerite traits way more, they would have hated garrisons more if they were released in 2020, if we were in legion beta right now people would be losing their minds.

SL overall is going in a great direction, there is just a culture of negativity around everything and in the wow sphere things are magnified because there are a lot of people who have been playing the game for 15 years and believe that the reason they aren't enjoying WoW as much as they one were is because blizzbad, rather than their path in life.

This is nonsense. I think Covenants are a great idea. The only downside, imo is the abilities being tied to them.

[goldlock]

The insane dislike for everything is a product of this negativity culture. People hated Azerite traits way more, they would have hated garrisons more if they were released in 2020, if we were in legion beta right now people would be losing their minds.

SL overall is going in a great direction, there is just a culture of negativity around everything and in the wow sphere things are magnified because there are a lot of people who have been playing the game for 15 years and believe that the reason they aren't enjoying WoW as much as they one were is because blizzbad, rather than their path in life.

Why is it in this "culture of negativity" you only point out failed systems that people repeatably warned blizzard about?

No one is psyched for power to be tied to covenants and those who enjoy the concept myself included are now extra annoyed... if they kept it to vanity items i could be enjoying the faction I most want to play with...

Now im more then likely gonna be stuck with some posh bat boys for progression raiding and what would of been a enjoyable system now looks like another trainwreck.

I think people are just absolutely done giving blizzard any benefit of the doubt when it comes to these alternative power progression systems. They haven't made one that worked and its been years of failures and a half dozen garbage systems.

Just give players all their passives at level cap and make story choices reward vanity items.

[Harbour]

Blizzard want the Class Focus (c) but their Covenant philosophy and design contradict it.

Blizzard want the classes to feel whole and specs being the flavor but what happen in practice is that for all classes abilities of certain Covenants synergies very well and satisfying with one spec, while being almost useless, sometimes not even worth of use for another two.

This means that your class actually isnt well-rounded, as one or two of its flavors are seriously lacking in satisfying synergy and output.

This is more or less true for all classes. And i dont see it addressed by testers and Blizzard at all. Thats pretty mind blowing. Its not okay to have major feature that works good for one spec and doesnt work for another spec of the same class, and you locked behind this bad, unsatisfying feeling until you swap the Covenant for more universally good ability.

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The insane dislike for everything is a product of this negativity culture. People hated Azerite traits way more, they would have hated garrisons more if they were released in 2020, if we were in legion beta right now people would be losing their minds.

SL overall is going in a great direction, there is just a culture of negativity around everything and in the wow sphere things are magnified because there are a lot of people who have been playing the game for 15 years and believe that the reason they aren't enjoying WoW as much as they one were is because blizzbad, rather than their path in life.

Its sad to see people defending the relatively new norm of replacing actual content with Class Fixing systems. Replacing the content with systems that allow to complete the class isnt good idea.

Neither it should be a norm to defend.

Since the very beginning WoW was the game where you pick the class, beat the bad guys and get the reward.

You do dungeons, you get the loot. You do raids, you get the loot. You do PvP, you get the loot.

At some point Blizzard started to see they loose players and decided that its too expensive to hold the playerbase and getting them leaver back with addition of tons of new dungeons, raids and PvP activities. They also saw they cant balance classes or make all of them all good.

In Legion they decided to play of these problems and introduce the systems that both make players busy in the game and allow them to go cheaper on everything else, including class enrichment and increasing the amount of actual content (dungeons, raids, PvP).

BFA and SL progressed this initiative. Players get used to it. They even defend it, as we see it today, in conduits update thread.

Hear me out.

Classes and specs SHOULD BE well-rounded and felt good from the GET GO (i.e. after reaching level cap). It was the MMORPG classic feature existed in WoW until Legion.
Dungeons, raids, interesting quest lines and PvP activities must be the second main focus of Blizzard. Three raids, 15 dungeons from the start, as much as possible for people to get busy with.

What SHOULD NOT happened (IT HAPPENED RIGHT NOW) are the classes being bland and unfinished and Systems (Covenants, Conduits, Legendaries, Soulbinds) being introduced as FIXING PATCHES to finish and complete said classes through GRINDING.

Those systems MUST NOT be used as content replacement that forces player to grind itself so the player can play a well-rounded class.

note: Obviously, some cosmetic systems can exist, to give a visual flavor to the class, its good.

Its really painful and scary to see some people getting used to the fact that Blizzard offers us unfinished classes and specs and create those patches to grind as replacement of the quality content. Its scary to see them defending it as if its some actual good content. Its not.

Who want WoW to be like that: you get level cap, you have your class/specs with all cool stuff baked in them so you can fully enjoy it NOW, not in patch 9.3, when you grind all systems till the cap, and you then go and do what you did prior Legion: do dungeons, do raids, do PvP, grind the gear. Then you can do the same with alts. Thats it.

Who want to do the bunch of activities to make up for class/specs bland design?

[Wheeler]

The insane dislike for everything is a product of this negativity culture. People hated Azerite traits way more, they would have hated garrisons more if they were released in 2020, if we were in legion beta right now people would be losing their minds.

Cmon. You can't just make random statements like this. You're making up an entire storyline to support your point. Here's the REALITY of what happened:

People hated azerite traits because Blizzard didn't put them into the game until VERY late beta. Imagine if soulbinds/conduits/legendaries didn't get into Shadowlands until early-late November. We'd be right in our criticism. They made multiple changes, multiple tuning passes, and inevitably gave up and slapped BiS traits on 8.3 armor and called it quits. Make note - the testers TOLD THEM THIS WOULD HAPPEN. They didn't listen.

We hated garrisons because they were touted as "player housing", when they are clearly not when compared to the actual player housing of every single WoW competitor - Again, a rightful criticism. People told them there wasn't enough customizability, every garrison would look the same, and Blizzard abandoned it entirely.

And lastly - Legion Beta testers pointed out that the legendary cap was bad and would cause issues. It did exactly what everyone was screaming at blizzard about, and they had to fix it.

So why you call it "Negativity Culture", this is what feedback that goes INTENTIONALLY unheard looks like. The difference is that they're listening to the feedback for Shadowlands, and many of the changes they're making are because the community has spoken up and said when something was bad. This is how you create a good video game. Feedback, changes, compromise, everyone wins. What you're calling "Negativity Culture" is actually what feedback looks like. If anything - The "Keep it positive" folks are the ones serving no purpose.

[Tavin]

TBH we dont really know enough about them to hate them. Most people just read 4 factions, abilities, not balanced and went from there.

It seems like one of the most interesting features ever imo.

[jeezusisacasual]

My biggest worry with the system is how useless some people will be due to how they do not follow the meta enough etc. If blizzard balances around the meta it destroys those who do not follow it and if they do not balance around the meta those who do meta builds will make the game easier, its a lose / lose and instead should have just gave a extra talent row reflective of the abilities to avoid headaches etc. I am personally hoping Raider Io lists people choice.

[Popokolara]

My biggest worry with the system is how useless some people will be due to how they do not follow the meta enough etc. If blizzard balances around the meta it destroys those who do not follow it and if they do not balance around the meta those who do meta builds will make the game easier, its a lose / lose and instead should have just gave a extra talent row reflective of the abilities to avoid headaches etc. I am personally hoping Raider Io lists people choice.

This is the big joke with ion's statements.
We want the choice to be meaningful but no extreme differences.
If the difference isnt big enough to be problematic its a pointless choice.

[jeezusisacasual]

This is the big joke with ion's statements.
We want the choice to be meaningful but no extreme differences.
If the difference isnt big enough to be problematic its a pointless choice.

Agreed, it can be fixed with numerous solutions but can they leave the hill they are on now tho?

[Alkizon]

Harbour
Blizzard want the Class Focus (c) but their Covenant philosophy and design contradict it.

Yeap, that the core. And all those stories about meaningful choice and stuff just doesn't have anything with all this. Let it be meaningful choice, but you have to put it were it belongs and not places that randomly comes to your head.

Engal
Remove those broken talents and make the covenant choice reward as class skin and skill transmog. Thus, player will choose what they like. this stay RP, and this wont force a player to choose something they don't like.

That what people said lo-o-o-ong ago (already during introduction's period)

(that's the only valid way they could be implemented)

still nothing in this direction was done, moreover, in addition, devs have promised to bind these things to dungeons'encounters... which should alert (also next 2 answers to it) smarter people, because first thing that should influence such is actions and events taking place now and here, the rest requires "flexible" systems "to anyone" with period and possibility of preparation, which by definition contradicts what these systems are.

I don't agree with this. I would rather put up with group in boss/encounter impassable by our current forces, than "run" 1k times finished, but short and repetitive content (this is not how great stories are written). In addition, methods of separation don't include only directly - "complexity" (boss/trash characteristics), but also other methods (see catch-up: currency and venders, loot from trash and special events (see U/BRD/S, shame on them for made cut-paths (=portals) thereafter = dividing them into pieces), professions (recipes and reagents inside)) and mechanics (see Ulduar/traps/switches = more trash, more complexities (de/buffs in cases of different players' behavior/actions, rather than randomly generated from standard (same for any instance) set), more rooms, more random (but characteristic only for these locality/mobs = story)/time-bound (cyclical/season/number of attempts/timer/full moving or fluid locality/infinite maze/quests/expansion progress) or special reagents (requiring gathering/reputation/currency/quest items)). Everything is much more interesting and diverse if you approach issue more creatively. Instance isn't self-sufficient world, but piece of outside one, living according to same laws and rules, this is its inalienable continuation and in character lvling/progress case - part of story, part of big journey = all "scaling"s/RNG-t(w)f/amount of modes are murdering this: either you are ready/able to pass or you don't, and problems are only in you, solve them and Try again!

If, during design development, solution (every step; not end result) is organized in unobvious way (and sometimes even not foreseen in advance), then there will be some semblance of freedom of choice. Is it hard? Yes, it won't be easy for both sides, but not impossible. For this, for example, dungeons' dynamic “parameters” are needed (walking "guards"/mini-bosses, changeable terrain, specially/accidentally hit “triggers” or some requirements for receiving one or another part of this content), which will be hardly to combine with current timers and "random"-rolled affixes... see where it leads?

Hence the problem, too much of everything is dancing around this system and it won't be possible to cut it out "this is main feature and selling point", otherwise whole process can be stopped and started from scratch... same happened with Azerite armor and other "garrisons/M+/artifacts". Don't be surprised at joint mention, "essence of influence" for them is the same.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
By the way: they still don't want to give up "box" rewards, without looking at all talk about "loot is loot", but by definition, loot is loot in the first place when it drops from boss for any whole party, that can kill it, and in only single/possible "instance", without scaling to spec/level/ilvl *pointing finger at new weekly loot boxing system and also PL* Well, where is fixed loot table and linear progres system? None of this, just idle talk.

Chosen characteristics are your role customization mechanism and gear is its main keeper, so customization = gear matters.
No matter how many items of this level exist with different characteristics, the main thing is that you have a controlled choice. Therefore, the more items at your disposal, the more opportunities you have for customization, but since gear=customization, than it remains important.
- He assumes that everyone chooses a piece of clothing depending on general characteristics he/she prefers for the own role (it could be even rogue tank/support, everything possible, gear is your role not you class, remember DKs from WotLK, that's why guardian/feral fills no problem in been at the same talent branch, but they changed/broke it). They aren't tied to character general progression (= class; unlike silly AA), they are tied to progress in expansion (= gear). And there is no such stupid stuff like many random items on 1 id = scaling to ilvl/lvl/spec (scaling/RNG=automatic=not your choice≈no choice for current system); characteristics are fixed on this particular item (you can disturb them a little with reforging and that's all, than put more effort with professions and here you go - you have all control over your customization):
You have control over choose which item you need, know where and how get it and how you will custom it.
- Hail the player, f*ck devs' dictatorship

This is another of many reasons why people are used to "skipping" "rushing" systems, trash has no significance (items-objectives, reagents, reputation, whatever) except to slow down player, bosses don't conventionally have any loot as such, so whole party rosily and cheerfully rushing to the "end" to get this "lootbox", and they don't need whole dungeon as such, as place/lore/challenge - this is what happened with one of significant element of progress and lore in the game under influence of M+ system

[Engal]

Yeap, that the core. And all those stories about meaningful choice and stuff just doesn't have anything with all this. Let it be meaningful choice, but you have to put it were it belongs and not places that randomly comes to your head.

Easy way to fix covenant issue :

Remove those broken talents and make the covenant choice reward as class skin and skill transmog. Thus, player will choose what they like. this stay RP, and this wont force a player to choose something they don't like.

[FAILoZOFF]

yet another flimsy idea.

[Boddhi]

Gotta pick the for me thematically / visually least appealing covenant because of the for me and my class most appealing abilities. Does say it all eh?

(And for those "you don't have to!" ones: I'll use those abilities a million times and they will make a major portion of how my gameplay feels, so i do.)

[kuhntasmash]

Covenant and it's conduits, I don't mind.

Conduits (specifically the class specific ones and not the soul bind abilities.) Just feel like the Legion artifact relics. Which is apparently the closest thing we are going to get to new talents past legion content.

Covenants being the first time where a faction you choose matter (blood sail vs cartel, aldori vs scyer) to the games narrative for your character.
I've also grown up with games like Gothic and Risen, so I am not offended by the idea of certain powers being locks away behind a choice.

That being said, I understand the frustrations. Warcraft hasn't really felt like a RPG ever. It is closer to a game like Diablo 3 and Destiny 2. It's just a loot treadmill.
I am a little surprised they haven't folded and just turned these new abilities into the level 60 talent line.

All this is said from a casual feral druid main, who wants to get Night Fae, but is heavily tempted to regaining mangle and insect swam back in one ability with Adaptive Swarm.

[Frozenbeef]

If reps and azerite/ artifact power had a baby.

[Eazy]

Never in the history of WoW players weren't able to get their BIS abilities for each content.

It's highly unfair and stupid thing.